When I was fourteen years old, my only brother, Cooper, passed away at the age of five as the result of an accident on our family’s farm. Since then, my family’s story has been marked by grief, yes, but also unmistakably marked by ministry. I’ve decided in the last almost-fourteen years that the sadness is heavy, but it cannot compete with the weightiness of knowing that my baby brother’s story is the reason heaven will be a little more crowded than maybe it would’ve been.
That’s not to say that sometimes the ministry of death isn’t hard to preach. It’s hard for someone else to hear you telling them to pull themselves out of bed in the morning when your words are muffled under your own covers.
One night last week I came home from the gym, washed my face, turned on some background noise, crawled into fresh sheets, and braced myself to entertain the emotions that had invited themselves for a sleepover.
Sleep, yeah right.
Depending on the day—sometimes grief hurts like a stubbed toe in the middle of the night. One minute you’re walking and the next you’re blindsided, gritting your teeth and asking God WHY with what little breath you have left in your lungs.
Other days it hurts for exactly what it is—living life in the wake of death. It’s just there. It’s in everything. Planning a wedding, counting groomsmen minus your baby brother. Another spider man movie coming out that he’ll never see. The thousandth family picture without him in it. Raising babies, he’ll never meet. I like to think he actually met them first, but who knows how that works?
But this is where it gets good.
The pain doesn’t mean God is any less good, it simply means we need Him more, and anything that makes me need Jesus more is something worth living with.
Cooper’s death is not our identity, but this ministry is our legacy. We have been entrusted with this story; for some reason, God saw our family fit to carry this cross for the kingdom, so it is necessary that we show you what is real.
Yes, the Lord is faithful. That’s real.
Yes, it hurts like nothing words will ever give justice to. That’s also real.
It’s been said that “time heals all wounds,” but I must kindly disagree. Jesus heals, and time is His mercy.
The reality is: we may never heal the way we planned, our bones may ache every time it rains, or even when it doesn’t, but whether we’re saying it with laughter in our mouths or tears staining our cheeks, we know this: 4,519 days, 108,469 hours and 54 minutes later God is as near and He is as faithful as He was on day one, but who’s counting?
Happy are they whose strength is in You, whose hearts are set on the pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Tears, I will make it a source of spring water (Psalm 84:6).
